I decided to post this thread because many people ask themselves (including me): which tier will give me the performance that i need to play? and MathieuB doesn't have time or money to post so many builds performance, so I need your help

3 things you need to know before posting are The following:

1) Must be gaming performance with any build. Specify if is HR build if is one
2) you can post it like this MW3 @ extra settings @ 1280x1024 Res @ 58 fps tier x or parts you used (doesn't need to be in this exact order).
3)you can post videos or pictures of game play displaying the performance of your pc

This will give new builders an idea what will come when they decide their budget.
So. Let the experiment begin
Thank You

I'll start it off. My PC is roughly the tier 8 build, exact specs are in my sig. For this purpose I did all the benchmarking at stock speeds (i7 950 @3.07ghz) just to make things less complicated. Also, I did the tests how most people game. I have my anti-virus, rainmeter, and a few other programs running in the background. Here are some results:

Will edit with more tests as I get time to put more games on here (it's finals week for summer semester!), and I will definitely be posting Skyrim performance when it's out.

EDIT #2: I've spent the evening testing Oblivion, which is my best comparison for Skyrim when it comes out in November. Running Vanilla Oblivion (no mods) at max settings garnered ~60 FPS on average, with dips as low as ~40 in crowded areas or when caches loaded outside. Most of the time, though, it was steady at the monitor's refresh rate at 85. Thought I turned V Sync off, but you know what? 85 is just fine.

I also tested a German-made, much more graphically-intensive mod for Oblivion called Nehrim. I'd like to blame it on the reportedly buggy programming, but performance at max settings averaged ~25 (max: ~30, min: ~20). Not great, but I bet the resource-inefficiency of the mod is playing a small role in this. Either way, things look promising for running Skyrim unless the reqs are absolutely ridiculous.

EDIT #3: Broke down and bought Just Cause 2 in a fit of messed up priorities. Info added above! So pretty...

EDIT #5: I've been way too busy playing the crap out of Skyrim to post specs. Oh, and fall semester finals...that, too. Anyway, it runs great maxed out at my preferred resolution, which is admittedly pretty low. The average FPS would actually be much higher, but VSync is recommended; the highest it ever goes is 60. The minimum of 30 was only really seen once when I was standing on a balcony in Markarth, looking down on the entire city. Overall, this was a tremendous success! I might post performance with graphics mods once the mod tools come out in January.